Sunday, May 24, 2015

It is too easy to fall into the trap, the habit, of treating Memorial Day as just a selfish personal party day, a vacation day, disconnected from the original purpose of setting aside this holiday as a federal occasion for solemnity and serious thought of others. Those 'others' made our daily life, our security, our history and even our very existence possible the way we know it.

To all our valued readers, please -- take time this weekend, more than just a few seconds, or a minute, and think long and hard about those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the rest of us. Appreciate those who have given their time and effort in military service on Veterans day (and we should think of them EVERY day, including those serving currently), but especially think of those who died in service to protecting this country, the ultimate act of patriotism. That is the purpose of Memorial Day.

Respect and honor them. Revere them. Remember them with gratitude. Please, do not take our security and our heritage for granted.

Golden Valley Man Continues Mission to Bring Meaning Back to Memorial Day

By: Cassie Hart
An annual tradition of flags lining a street in Golden Valley for Memorial Day continues.
Starting the week before Memorial Day, Golden Valley’s Flag Row runs
along Golden Valley Road from Highway 100 to Winnetka Avenue N. It’s
lined with hundreds of U.S. flags and POW-MIA flags to pay tribute to
those who have fallen.
It’s a tradition that has been kept alive thanks to a few volunteers. But it all started with one man several years ago.
"I put them up a week before Memorial Day to help bring awareness
before the holiday," 52-year-old John Giese of Golden Valley said.
The Army and Air Force veteran went to Walgreens the night before
Memorial Day 2006 and bought every 12-by-18 inch flag in the store. He
typed “Pfc Gavin Colburn, 2005” on pieces of paper and taped them to the
sticks of every flag and placed them in front of every house of someone
he knew. The 30 flags extended from the Hwy 100 Frontage Road to Oak
Grove Church.
Giese met Colburn, a fellow truck driver, the day he arrived in Iraq
with the U.S. Army Reserve. They talked about home and agreed to talk
more later. Colburn’s convoy left on a mission. Three hours later, the
20-year-old from Ohio was killed by an improvised explosive device.
Giese said he found out about it the next morning.
"That just kind of had an impact on me," Giese said.
He met two more men while on tour who died a short time later.
When Giese got back home, he said he wanted to bring meaning back to Memorial Day.
"I wanted to let people know that it's not only about a four-day weekend," he said.
He continues his mission with Golden Valley’s Flag Row, which has grown to more than 600 flags lining the route.
Giese said those who want to help in his cause should put up a flag at their home.
"Take the time and do something to recognize why you got the day off of
work in the first place. Go to a memorial service," Giese said, adding
that people should talk to their kids about why they are not in school
for the day.
People are encouraged to walk or drive the 1 1/2 mile route on Golden
Valley Road to pay tribute to fallen military soldiers. The flags are up
until 5 p.m. Memorial Day.
There are 83,126 POWs still unaccounted for since Wold War II.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Last month the Shriver Report, a non-profit that deals with women in the US and feminism (both advances and reversals)did a survey, in part examining the attitudes of men towards a possible female president. It explains a great deal about why conservative men are waging culture and legislative/policy war on women, not only in regards to reproductive issues but rather a broad spectrum of issues. Worse, those beliefs and the policies and legislation that result from them, are becoming more extreme and more draconian - and deadly.

This part of that survey findings I found to be key in understanding why conservative men, who are opposed to the advances of feminism and are attempting to undo them, perceive a threat to their roles at an emotional level - this is the 'what' and the 'why':

When asked to describe in their own words why it is harder to be a man in their generation compared with their father’s, men are most likely to say this is due to women attaining a stronger position in the workplace, a stronger position financially, and greater gender equality. These men also cite negative assumptions about men, a more competitive job market, greater household responsibilities for men, and greater expectations for men in society today.

There is something deeply and seriously wrong when we could be more scandalized, shocked, or offended by the notion of men experiencing a limited simulation of pregnancy and childbirth than we are aware of or shocked by women and infants dying at an increasing rate, an appalling rate, comparable to other similarly developed first world countries.

I posted this back on May 7, but it does not appear to have been adequately connected to the subsequent posts as part of the theme of why our post-1980 era conservatism, aka the policies and ideology broadly characterized as Reaganism, are massively misogynistic, massively anti-feminist, to such an extreme they constitute a war on women.

Please pay attention to the statistics on infant and maternal mortality in this video from May 5, 2015.

These statistics are shocking, genuinely deeply shocking, deeply disturbing. These statistics require something to push back against these policies, something to undo, or to reverse, this conservative Reaganism thinking at the deepest and most profound level. Because this thinking is an integral part of conservative identity, because it is emotional rather than rational or logical, bringing about that kind of change in a conservative is extremely difficult by reliance on facts and figures, or logic as persuasion.

My co-blogger Penigma has respectfully and constructively criticized me for proposing that conservative men who vote on legislation affecting women and support for families should experience both the simulated labor pains and the discomfort of simulated pregnancy pre-labor with a pregnancy belly appliance. He viewed those suggestions as extremist and as sensationalism. That was never my intent, and I am not so far persuaded that those proposals are either extreme or sensational; rather, given the number of men who try those experiences voluntarily, and given that they are more brief than the actual experience for women, and that men can opt out of them whenever they become too unpleasant for their tolerance threshold, I think the proposal is actually quite benign and positive. Deaths certainly justify at least considering alternatives when other solutions have been so unsuccessful.

My co-blogger Penigma has also chided me, in his usual very gentlemanly and considerate manner, for focusing too much on pregnancy and labor, and not sufficiently on other aspects related to the war on women, such as the attempts to limit or ban outright access to affordable contraception (as just one example).

I would argue instead that the purpose of proposing those two simulations for conservative male legislators is to provide them a very physical and emotionally visceral, physical understanding of a challenging uniquely female experience as a means to open their hearts and minds to a broader and deeper change of belief about women than only pregnancy and giving birth. I would argue that after experiencing even a brief exposure to simulated childbirth, a conservative legislator would be less likely to find it plausible that poor women become pregnant just to get a free 'Obamaphone'. Of course, there is no such thing as a free Obamaphone; rather a Bush era program continued under Obama where reconditioned phones are provided by corporations with limited minutes on them for the purpose of job hunting, with use monitored and availability strictly means tested, including a requirement for actual job hunting. But those facts are immaterial to the conservative narrative -- as most facts appear to be ignored by conservatives in favor of their ideology narrative against women.

Let me provide you an example from the right - specifically the religious right. This is a term that has been widely used on right wing media, including (but not limited to) Fox News, via Boingboing back in 2012, although it continues into 2015. It is not only misogynistic, and anti-sexuality, it is additionally some of the most ugly kind of racism; but this goes a long way towards explaining conservative legislation:

"The Democrats tried to make this election about a single issue: The right to slut. Or more precisely, the right to slut without the responsibility of consequences.""One thing one has to remember about women, especially slutty ones: They usually don’t make decisions based on reason," he writes, after explaining that sluts want to get abortions so they can be slutty and childless, but that they also want to leech off of welfare to raise welfare babies, which is of course a totally reasoned flow of logic. "This election cycle shows that the Slut Vote is real, and Republicans lose because they discount the existence of original sin in women," writes B-Skillet. "Abortion is often called the 'third rail of American politics,' but in truth, the third rail is a woman’s right to slut (with cash and prizes)." The famous “gender gap” isn’t really a gap based on gender. The right overwhelmingly wins older and married women. The “gender gap” should more accurately be called the slut vote. Women make up about 54% of the electorate. It is very hard to win without winning that segment, or at least losing it only narrowly while winning men big. While the right usually wins married women, the fact is that married women constitute an ever-decreasing share of the female population. Women want to delay marriage as long as possible so they can “have it all,” and usually “have it all” means “have as much hot alpha sex as possible without any consequences.” And thus, less married women and more sluts (not that these two groups are mutually exclusive, per se) And that’s where the Democrats come in. Contrary to common belief, the primary reason the Democrats own the black vote has nothing to do with civil rights. The Democrats were only partially supportive of civil rights in the 60′s (with southern Democrats advocating “segregation forever”). Lincoln was a Republican, and Republicans in the House and Senate voted for civil rights legislation in the 60s. Rather, Democrats have won the black vote because the black community is dominated by illegitimacy, and the Democrats are willing to subsidize and support that illegitimacy (as well as provide access to cheap abortions) so as to take away from sluts the consequences of their actions. Consequently, young black people grow up on the dole and not only never realize there might be something wrong with that, but eventually come to believe that’s the way it should be. The Democrats have won the black vote by first “empowering” single black mothers. This is now beginning to happen in white suburbia, except unlike women in the urban black community, white suburban sluts start from a place of relative wealth and privilege (daddy’s little princess). Thus, food stamps–and increased rewards for having illegitimate kids while on food stamps–don’t (yet) appeal to them. So instead Obama appealed to rich white sluts by forcing someone else (the Catholic church, in this case) to pay for their birth control, and by scaring them about alleged threats to their ability to take advantage of Planned Parenthood’s services (Planned Parenthood being conveniently located in the minority part of town, of course, so as to provide anonymity to visiting white girls whose white girl friends never go over there–except to visit Planned Parenthood themselves). This created a wedge issue in the suburban community that allowed Obama to play more strongly there than he might have if the election ended up purely about the economy or the national debt. One thing one has to remember about women, especially slutty ones: They usually don’t make decisions based on reason. So all the Obama administration had to do was scare them that Mitt Romney was going to take away their birth control and their access to abortion. The fear for them is that, without birth control and abortion, they might actually get pregnant and have to give birth. That is scary not simply because of the economic burden of having a child (since, hey, they can get all kinds of cash and prizes if that happens), but because if that happened then everyone would know they’re sluts, and their image as daddy’s pure little snowflake princess goes out the window. The right loses the female vote primarily because so many of them still operate from a feminist world-view: Women are pure, perfect, kind, and altruistic, and the only reason they “get into trouble” is that some evil, conniving, manipulative man tricked them into sleeping with the entire football team.

Conservatives are broadly anti-abortion, and they have attempted at all levels of government to ban abortion, by claiming it is killing babies. At the same time, they promote policies which actually DO kill babies, not just clusters of cells at the embryonic and fetal level of development which have no established moral, legal or scientific standing as human beings.

This is not exclusively an issue of pregnancy or giving birth however, but part of a larger view of women as the enemy, especially to the degree that women fail to conform to submission to men and conformity to a pre-1950's style of puritanism. This is a worldview of women as a threat, to male dominance and by extension to a rigid social hierarchy which in the view of conservatives equates to order and stability, 'the right(AKA right-wing) way' of doing things.

This is about changing all thinking and beliefs about women, from the minimum wage (which affects women more than men, to pay and pay equality, and as a result affects poverty levels more for women than for men) to health care (including the increased availability of health care through the ACA), to nutritional supplement levels like WIC and SNAP, to the funding of programs like Governor Dayton's pre-K, to the demeaning of single women as a demographic that votes for Democrats more than Republicans being characterized as the 'slut vote', to the belief that women, especially single women, use pregnancy as an ATM card through the social safety network of welfare benefits, to the attitudes about rape which blame the victim not the rapist.

I would ague that it requires a fairly strong, if not drastic solution, when we even see a recurring theme of conservatives figures claiming that women should not have the vote, and when we have a Justice on the Supreme Court who publicly asserts that the U.S. constitution does not prohibit gender discrimination (Scalia, here).

Conservatives do not want to force women back into the bad old days of the 1950s. Conservatives, led by predominantly white males at all levels of governance and politics, want to force women bac to the very bad old days of the 1850s. We need to push back against that -- and push back hard. That I believe requires thinking outside the box of methods we have tried to date, and which have failed. That I believe may require an approach that is not exclusively a logical argument of dry facts which are easily ignored or denied.

As an FYI, since I try to be conscientious about fact checking what I publish, I looked to see if Thom Hartmann had his numbers right -- he did.

More babies are dying before they turn 1 year old in the United States than in most of Europe and several other developed countries, a new U.S. government report says.A greater proportion of premature births and deaths of full-term babies are driving the higher rate, which puts the United States below 25 other countries, according to the report, released Sept. 24 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."I think we've known for a long time that the U.S. has a higher preterm birth rate, but this higher infant mortality rate for full-term, big babies who should have really good survival prospects is not what we expected," said lead author Marian MacDorman, a senior statistician and researcher in the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.The infant mortality rate refers to the percentage of babies born alive who die before their first birthday.The report compares infant mortality rates in the United States to those of European countries plus Australia, Israel, Japan, Korea and New Zealand in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available.

It looks as if Thom Hartmann may have UNDER reported the data for maternal mortality rates. From the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals:

Maternal Mortality in the United States: A Human Rights Failure

With 99% of maternal deaths occurring in developing countries, it is too often assumed that maternal mortality is not a problem in wealthier countries. Yet, statistics released in September of 2010 by the United Nations place the United States 50th in the world for maternal mortality — with maternal mortality ratios higher than almost all European countries, as well as several countries in Asia and the Middle East.1, 2Even more troubling, the United Nations data show that between 1990 and 2008, while the vast majority of countries reduced their maternal mortality ratios for a global decrease of 34%, maternal mortality nearly doubled in the United States.1 For a country that spends more than any other country on health care and more on childbirth-related care than any other area of hospitalization — US$86 billion a year — this is a shockingly poor return on investment.3, 4 Given that at least half of maternal deaths in the United States are preventable,5 this is not just a matter of public health, but a human rights failure.6 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “every human being has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including medical care and necessary social services”.7 This means that the United States health care system must provide health care services that are available, accessible, acceptable and of good quality.8 In addition, the health care system must be free from discrimination, must be accountable and must ensure the active participation of women in decision-making. Yet, instead, too many women in the United States face shortages of providers and facilities and inadequate staffing; financial, bureaucratic, transport and language barriers; care that is not culturally appropriate or respectful; a lack of opportunity for informed decision-making and the lack of a system to ensure that all women receive high-quality, evidence-based care.

In this larger context, of actual death and suffering, I don't think demanding our legislators voluntarily expand the horizons of their experience to include an exercise in empathy building and consciousness raising. I certainly do not think that it is reasonable, in this age of popular novel trilogies like 50 Shades of Gray, and at the other end of the spectrum, actual torture of unwilling victims who have no control over what is done to them, for such a demand to be regarded as advocating the torture of men. I would argue rather that this is one possibility to consider in reversing policies and ideology that are literally killing women and children in this country, and causing a level of suffering that is not adequately known or acknowledged.

We desperately need greater awareness, greater knowledge, and a helluva lot greater empathy from conservatives, particularly the male conservatives who are the primary initiators of the destructive and damaging legislation, albeit with some level of support from both men and women in their base. If it takes a bit of abdominal contraction to expand that empathy, so long as it is within their control and voluntary, then that is not abusive, and it is certainly not advocating torture of anyone., but rather it is advocating for women and infants to live and thrive, and as a result, to benefit the nation, to improve the country for all of us.

This is in the larger context of state level anti-abortion legislation, as well as state level and federal level cuts to the funding of health care for women, notably Planned Parenthood but also cutting funding to other clinics, and an overall domestic spending that affects poor women and children. Conservatives consistently act to benefit special interests, primarily wealthy people and corporations while intentionally harming those most vulnerable. Conservatives are not only appallingly incompetent at any form of economic policy, they do real damage in their failed attempts at governance that harm people individually and weaken the nation as a whole.

In the previous post, I had suggested that male legislators on the GOP side of the aisle should be required to undergo labor pain simulations before they voted on any legislation that adversely had an impact on women -- especially on choice and reproduction. While my co-blogger Penigma seems to find this a demand that GOP male legislators be tortured, I would point out that fairly large numbers of men, acting in solidarity with their wives or partners during pregnancy, undergo this experience voluntarily as an exercise in empathy. That was precisely the purpose for which I presented this demand, as the overwhelmingly male body of legislators at both the state and federal levels, particularly in leadership and policy determining positions, appear to be in dire need of better empathy in their characters.

In that context and for that purpose, in addition to the experience of simulated labor, I would argue as well that the experiences in the video below could only improve on the current deficiencies on the right.

I don't think I'm being too harsh here in my criticism of the failures of compassion and empathy among the right wingers. Here are a few examples of what I mean.

From the Daily Tribune and the AP (bold face and enlarged type are my emphasis added - DG):

Republican-controlled House passes sweeping cuts to domestic programsWASHINGTON (AP) -- Jolted to action by deficit-conscious newcomers, the Republican-controlled House passed sweeping legislation early Saturday to cut $61 billion from hundreds of federal programs and shelter coal companies, oil refiners and farmers from new government regulations.
The $1.2 trillion bill covers every Cabinet agency through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year, imposing severe spending cuts aimed at domestic programs and foreign aid, including aid for schools, nutrition programs, environmental protection, and heating and housing subsidies for the poor.
The measure faces a rough ride in the Democratic-controlled Senate, even before the GOP amendments adopted Thursday, Friday and early Saturday morning pushed the bill further and further to the right on health care and environmental policy. Senate Democrats promise higher spending levels and are poised to defend Obama's health care bill, environmental policies and new efforts to overhaul regulation of the financial services industry.
Changes rammed through the House on Friday and Saturday would shield greenhouse-gas polluters and privately owned colleges from federal regulators, block a plan to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, and bar the government from shutting down mountaintop mines it believes will cause too much water pollution, siding with business groups over environmental activists and federal regulators in almost every instance."This is like a Cliff Notes summary of every issue that the Republicans, the Chamber of Commerce, and the (free market) CATO Institute have pushed for 30 years," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. "And they're just going to run them through here."
Across four long days of freewheeling debate, Republicans left their conservative stamp in other ways.
They took several swipes at the year-old health care law, including voting for a ban on federal funding for its implementation. At the behest of anti-abortion lawmakers, they called for an end to federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Republicans awarded the Pentagon an increase of less than 2 percent increase, but domestic agencies would bear slashing cuts of about 12 percent. Such reductions would feel almost twice as deep since they would be spread over the final seven months of the budget year. Republicans recoiled, however, from some of the most politically difficult cuts to grants to local police and fire departments, special education and economic development. Amtrak supporters easily repelled an attempt to slash its budget. "The bill will destroy 800,000 American jobs," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., citing a study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. "It will increase class sizes and take teachers out of the classrooms ... It will jeopardize homeless veterans, make our communities less secure, threaten America's innovation."

The Environmental Protection Agency was singled out by Republicans eager to defend business and industry from numerous agency regulations they say threaten job-creation and the economy. The EPA's budget was slashed by almost one-third, and then its regulatory powers were handcuffed in a series of floor votes.

Proposed federal regulations would be blocked on emission of greenhouse gases, blamed for climate change, and a proposed regulation on mercury emissions from cement kilns would also be stopped. Additionally, the bill also calls for a halt to proposed regulations affecting Internet service providers and privately-owned colleges, victories for the industries that would be affected. The 359-page bill was shaped beginning to end by the first-term Republicans, many of them elected with tea party backing. Highlights of proposals in House GOP spending billWASHINGTON (AP) -- The House Republicans' $1.2 trillion bill for financing federal programs through Sept. 30, when the current budget year ends, includes many spending cuts and prohibitions that make a showdown with President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats inevitable. Among the biggest flashpoints are provisions that would: --Cut about $60 billion in spending from last year's levels in many domestic programs, including education, environmental protection and community services. --Block money to implement Obama's health care overhaul law enacted last year. --Bar federal funds for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and family planning services with its hundreds of clinics across the U.S. The organization says 90 percent of the $363 million a year it receives in government aid comes from Washington or the federal-state Medicaid program. --Eliminate federal family planning and teen pregnancy prevention grants. --Block federal aid to overseas groups that provide abortions or counsel women about them.

Here is another example. I would point out that the overwhelmingly white male GOP appears to assert on a regular basis that women exaggerate and lie; also that they should just 'keep their legs together', and that they cannot be entrusted with making medical decisions about their own bodies and health with accurate medical information -- so they legalize state-mandated lying and give cover to doctors to lie to their patients under the justification of conscience. Examples of that would be requiring doctors to give medically inaccurate information to women, such as abortions lead to or cause breast cancer (they do not) or exempting from malpractice claims for providing false information to a patient or withholding information to a patient, if a doctor opposes abortion and believes that patient might consider having one, up to and including deceiving a patient about being pregnant. No such provision for being dishonest with a patient, for matters of conscience of the doctor, exists for any interaction between a doctor and male patients; no state mandated requirement of false information, intruding on the relationship between doctor and patient, exists for any interaction with male patients either. These are exclusively male driven, and imposed exclusively on women.

I call that a war on women. I call it unfair. I call it discriminatory. I call it harmful and damaging. I call it in need of serious correction and change. It is worth noting that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not recognize a right to weapons of deadly force (i.e. guns) but does recognize a right to autonomy and self determination (i.e. reproductive choice) and a right to medical care; the GOP, mired in the last century or earlier (say, the stone age?) believes the reverse, that there in an inherent right to the means to kill other people or yourself, but no right to health care. How significant and how sad they get it precisely reversed -- and how predictable!

House Passes ‘Disgustingly Cruel’ 20-Week Abortion Ban

The Republican-dominated U.S. House voted 242 to 184 Wednesday to pass a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks nationwide, with no exceptions for a woman’s health or fetal anomalies, and with rape and incest exceptions that advocates call callous and cruel.“This bill is a danger to women’s lives and well-being, an affront to their dignity, and a threat to the rights and liberties all Americans hold dear,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement after the bill’s passage.While supporters said the bill is necessary because 20-week-old fetuses can feel pain, medical experts disagree. Critics charged that the bill is unconstitutional and intended to help end legal abortion in America by challenging Roe v. Wade.“It’s the beginning of the end of abortion—at 20 weeks, at 17 weeks, at 12 weeks, at one week, at conception,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) said on the House floor. “This is an anti-abortion bill. It’s not about fetal pain, it’s not about 20 weeks.”This isn’t the first time the House has passed a 20-week abortion ban, but Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has promised the unprecedented step of taking the bill up in the Senate.President Obama has threatened to veto the bill. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called the bill “disgraceful” at a press conference Wednesday, and said that the president “strongly opposes” it.

And last but not least, the paternalistic notarized note legislation for a woman to make a medical decision about her pregnancy. I would point out that no comparable legislation exists for any male procedure; for example, no notarized note is required before a man gets a vasectomy, even if that could dramatically affect the options for his spouse to become pregnant. No, those permission slips are only required for women, never men.

Missouri Bill Amending Informed Consent Law to Require Permission From Father Prior to Abortion (HB 131)

HB 131 would amend Missouri’s informed consent law (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 188.027) to add a provision that would prohibit an abortion from being performed or induced unless and until the father of the unborn child provides written, notarized consent to the abortion, except in cases where the woman upon whom the abortion is to be performed or induced was the victim of rape or incest and the pregnancy resulted from the rape or incest.If the father of the unborn child is deceased, the woman upon whom the abortion is to be performed or induced would be required to sign a notarized affidavit attesting to this fact.The bill would prohibit a physician from performing or inducing an abortion unless and until the physician has obtained the written consent required in these provisions. The bill would further require the physician to retain a copy of the consent or affidavit in the patient’s medical record.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Here is the thing -- labor seldom is over in an hour; it can go on for MUCH longer. We are fortunate that science has now provided this opportunity for men to physically share this experience.

I dare them to do so before they intrude their stupid politics to exert control over womens' bodies. This should apply not only to men before passing legislation on abortion, but also legislation relating to all aspects of birth control. Shame on conservatives, especially those who would inflict pregnancy on girls rather than women.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Here is an extraordinary example of motherhood the hard way, from the animal kingdom a little over two months ago --- a bald eagle keeping a nest with two eggs warm, in spite of horrific quantities of snowfall. These are Pennsylvania eagles, but they could as easily be Minnesota bald eagles, given how fortunate our state is to have a large bald eagle population.

This video seemed particularly appropriate, given the snow to the west of us in SoDak, and the forecast for later today and tomorrow of snow in some parts of Minnesota as well. (Don't put away those scarves and mittens quite yet moms!)

And a follow up story on the mom and dad eagles, and their now hatched young eaglets, a story that should ring true to every mom who has spent years of her life cleaning up.............stuff (some of it especially not nice). The story goes a long way towards explaining why the live feed looks a lot less clear than the snow footage.

A week and a half later, the camera view is better, but still not as clear as before.

For months, millions of viewers across the world have been glued to the eagle cam located next to a nest in Codorus State Park near Hanover, watching the eaglets every moving including, yes, relieving themselves in the nest.
There's been a few close calls but the eaglets have missed the camera entirely.
They didn't miss this morning.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission confirmed in a tweet this morning that the camera "was hit by eagle waste."

This is a screenshot of the eagle cam, which has been obscured by eagle waste on Thursday. (PA Game Commission)

A shot of the eaglets in the bald eagle nest at Codorus State Park via the live feed provided by the PA Game Commission. (Courtesy of PA Game Commission Eagle Cam)

For now, the camera remains on, but the view of the eagles is hazy at best. Officials from the Game Commission say they hope that a future rain storm will help clean the camera and clear the image.
For once, it's a good thing. Rain is expected Thursday and Friday.
And if you were wondering, the Game Commission will not be climbing up there to clean the camera.
"The eagle camera will remain in place until after the eaglets fledge in late June or early July," the Game Commission wrote on Facebook. "At that time, it will be taken down for maintenance."

Friday, May 8, 2015

in view of the provoked attack last weekend in Texas. A pox on both the extremists - the anti-muslims associated with the bigot Pam Geller, who only seeks free speech for herself and those who agree with her, but not those who disagree with her, and who seeks to prevent the exercise of freedom of religion under the Constitution as well, and a pox on those who are stupid enough to be propagandized through extreme religion to act violently against others.

I've seen plenty of those who think like the provocateurs that all Muslims are terrorists, and they further argue that there is a war against Christianity (there isn't), AND perhaps the most egregious claim of all, they claim that there is not a war being waged IN THE USA against Muslims, that Christians are not violent towards that other faith.

That is not true. Not only is the hate attacks of the like of Geller an attack on all Muslims, not just terrorists, much like the anti-semitism we have seen throughout history, but there is very real violence against Muslims in this country on a regular basis, without provocation by the individual victims.

From CNS news back in February of this year:

“We [CAIR] now call on the DHS and FBI to release an intelligence assessment
addressing the spike in hate crimes targeting Muslim, Arab, Middle
Eastern, Sikh, Hindu, and South Asian communities throughout the United
States,” CAIR said.
“Without an awareness of the threat posed by all forms of violent extremism, our national security will remain at risk.”
In a brief earlier this month outlining its concerns about the
administration’s CVE programs, CAIR noted that the government had not
launched an equivalent program after two men allegedly linked to the
sovereign citizen movement were accused of with the 2012 murder of two Louisiana deputy sheriffs. (The accused are facing capital murder charges.)
“The absence of nationally-announced government CVE programs
targeting violence emanating from white supremacist or anti-government
groups results in the false insinuation that American Muslims are not
fully invested in honoring our religious and civic duty to our nation,”
the CAIR brief stated.
Another lobby group, Muslim Advocates, also expressing its concern
about the CVE initiative, claimed that it focused on Muslims and ignored
“the roughly 95% of other threats of extremist violence.”

In March of this year the FBI announced that it would now be tracking this kind of hate crimes, including those against Sikhs who are frequently mistaken for Muslims. From WN.com and the Siasat daily:

In 2011, two elderly Sikh Americans, Gurmej Atwal and Surinder Singh,
were shot and killed while out for a walk in Elk Grove, California, a
part of Bera's constituency, in a suspected hate crime that is still
unsolved.
"Since the September 11th attacks, too many Americans, especially
Sikh, Hindu and Arab-Americans, have been wrongfully subjected to hate
crimes and discrimination, including the shooting of two Sikh Americans
in my own city," Bera said.
"Religious tolerance is a fundamental value of our nation and we must
do everything we can to prevent these crimes motivated by bias against a
victim's religious beliefs," he said.
"Until now, Anti-Sikh hate crimes were not recognized by the FBI,"
said Rajdeep Singh, Director of Law and Policy at the Sikh Coalition.
"Year after year, Sikh Americans were being targeted for harassment and violence because of their distinct identity.
"For the first time, the FBI now officially acknowledges that Sikhs
are targeted for being Sikhs. While refinements are needed to the
agency's tracking system and training standards, we are making
progress," he said.

We have an issue in our legislature relating to sex and science. Not surprising, we have a divide along political lines relating to the issues, with conservatives rejecting the science and medical opinion.

Conservatives are consistently wrong on these issues, and their being wrong does real harm to real people. Conservatives have faulty information, and worse values. Transgender children and LGBT children are as much a part of their families and communities as any other children.

Hooray for the democrats in the Minnesota legislature, especially in the Senate for their vote in support of transgender children in our schools, as part of the education policy omnibus bill.

Boo! No! Wrong! Bad! to conservatives, republican or more fringie extreme for pushing an anti-transgender children legislation that would not benefit any of our children or adults, but which only promotes ignorance on the subject of gender identity.

The largest organization focused on factual information and policy on this topic is WPATH, which sides with the Dems against the GOP:

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) recognizes the right of all people to legal identity recognition and to identity documents consonant with their gender identity.

Conservatives want to push sexual attitudes and knowledge back to another century, to a reproductive and sexuality dark ages. Conservatives as a group, as a voting block, as a demographic, are terribly lacking in knowledge and have a failed attitude towards any aspect of human sexuality.

what the reality of
conservative ignorance
looks like - a chlamydia outbreak

They do not understand gender identity, and they do not understand their own human sexuality -- if the rate of divorce, cheating on spouses in marriage, use of pornography (including homosexual porn), and the rates of sexually transmitted diseases and underage teen birthrates are anything to go by as a metric.

We see this in the Chlamydia outbreak in Texas, in a school which has embraced religious rightwing abstinence only sex ed, which provides factually inaccurate information to students, and which largely do not provide sexual information at all.

In Crane High School, in Crane, Texas, the superintendent of schools finally admitted that abstinence only sex ed does not work -- although this has been clear for a long time, by objective, scientific research. From the WaPo:

“We do have an abstinence curriculum, and that’s evidently ain’t working,” Rumage told KFOR. “We need to do all we can, although it’s the parents’ responsibility to educate their kids on sexual education.”

In spite of not working, conservatives in Texas have thrown more money down this shit hole of abstinence only sex ed. Keep in mind that in addition to equipping students for life as adults with complete and factually accurate information on all aspects of sex and human reproduction, including sexually transmitted diseases and safe sex. Most recently in Texas, as another example of failed conservative thinking, the legislature defunded HIV Prevention, to fund instead more abstinence only sex ed. From the Texas Observer:

House Votes to Defund HIV Prevention to Pay for Abstinence Education

Texas has the third highest rate of HIV infections in the country, but that didn’t stop lawmakers from passing an amendment that defunds HIV/STD prevention programs Tuesday. The amendment to the House budget proposal—offered by Rep. Stuart Spitzer (R-Kaufman)—diverts $3 million over the next biennium to abstinence-only sexual education programs.House Democrats fought against the amendment in a debate that rapidly devolved into awkward farce, with Rep. Spitzer revealing details of his own sexual history as proof of the effectiveness of abstinence. For those keeping tabs at home, he was a virgin until marrying his wife at age 29, although he declined to answer a question from Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) on whether she was the first person he propositioned. “Decorum,” shouted state Rep. Jason Isaac (R-Dripping Springs).Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) asked Spitzer just how much money is needed for abstinence education in Texas, which receives more federal funding than any other state. Spitzer responded that additional funds are needed as long as people are still having sex before marriage. His goal, he said, was for everyone to know that “abstinence is the best way to prevent HIV.”“My goal is for everyone to be HIV/AIDS free,” Turner said.

For all the good it would do, Turner might as well sacrifice a goat on an alter on the Texas legislature steps to accomplish the same thing... or more precisely FAIL to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

how we saluted the flag In American classrooms during the pledge of allegiance prior to December 1942 image from wikipedia[

Salute to the U.S. flag devised by pledge of allegiance author Francis Bellamy, known as the Bellamy salute

This series on flag propaganda by the radical right details specific examples of how lies and manipulation of information is being used to polarize this country, and how it acts to create a vulnerable and gullible group of well meaning conservatives susceptible to ginned up wedge issues to turn out the vote.

We had another one of these many and continuing stories this past week or so, all over the right wing propaganda machine, pandering to conservative prejudice and ignorance.

The latest pseudo-scandal in the ongoing misinformation campaign about our flag by conservatives comes from Florida, specifically the Miami PD where this propaganda is being combined with conservative fascism to attack both freedom of religion, feminism and immigrants -- the ultimate in Us vs Them politics -- by targeting a black Muslim woman who is an assistant chief of police in a deep southern state as the most recent example of flag propaganda.

From the Source.com:
Miami PD Supports Muslim Assistant Police Chief Who Was Criticized For Not Pledging To Flag

A muslim Assistant Police Chief was within her rights to not salute the American flag during a police ceremony

The Miami Police Department said Assistant Chief Of Police Anita Najiy followed proper code when deciding not to salute the American flag while in uniform during a recent promotional ceremony. According to the Miami Herald, Maj. Delrish Moss said,

“the military code of conduct supersedes police code and that Najiy properly followed that code. While the department’s code of conduct allows for a reprimand if an officer doesn’t salute the flag, it makes no mention of covering the heart during the pledge.”

Najiy was harshly criticized by the Miami Fraternal Order of Police President Sgt. Javier Ortiz, who publicized the incident insisted that Najiy, who did stand at attention during the ceremony, did not place her hand on her heart because she is a Muslim.

Najiy, a 31-year veteran of the agency and devout Muslimah, made history in Miami last year as an African-American and as a female by being appointed Assistant Chief of Police. It was the first time in the history of the Miami Police Department that a female member was appointed to Assistant Chief of Police. During the ceremony last year, Chief Manuel Orosa said, “I am privileged to select Commander Najiy as one of my assistant chiefs. Our 116-year city has witnessed many milestones, but this, by far, is one of the greatest of our history.”

In response to Ortiz statements, The Miami Police Benevolent Association released a statement on Wednesday criticizing Ortiz’s obsession with tearing down Naijay, saying Ortiz was being hypocritical, considering he himself did not salute the flag because he was busy taping Najiy. The Association said,

“Racism cloaked in patriotism is a huge insult to the American flag, the city of Miami Police Department and the countless hate and anti-Muslim filled rants generated by the recent antics of the FOP president; those two things seem to be the genesis of the current false controversy.”

So, NO, this woman did not fail to put her hand over her heart because she is a Muslim (gasp! <sarcasm>) who hates America, as conservatives want people to believe. She did it because that was the correct protocol, the correct FORM of respect for her to follow. There was no anti-American sentiment, no disloyalty or disrespect involved whatsoever. But THAT is not the factual version circulated by flag propagandists like Fox News and Breitbart seeking to factually alter the real 'narrative', as noted by Freethoughtblogs,com:

Sgt. Javier Ortiz, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, wants Assistant Chief Anita Najiy removed from her position as honor guard commander. He sent a letter Monday to Chief Rodolfo Llanes seeking a reprimand.

Ortiz claims that Najiy’s failure to salute the flag “to make a political statement” during Friday’s ceremony at the Miami Police College is a violation of the police oath. He calls her actions “unprofessional and disgraceful.”

“She is actively refusing to show allegiance to the United States of America, which is part of our oath as law enforcement officers,” Ortiz told Local 10 News. “This has been going on for several months.”…

“By not publicly showing her allegiance to our nation with the rest of the Miami Police Department, she is violating our oath,” Ortiz wrote.

Ortiz also questions Najiy’s allegiance to the country.

“If she isn’t loyal to the United States of America, what country is she loyal and allegiant to?” Ortiz wrote.

“What makes you think she does not have allegiance just because of a physical actions?” asked Local 10’s Glenna Milberg.

“Because she is denouncing the United States in full police uniform and she is making a political statement by wearing that uniform,” Ortiz said.

“But is that what she’s doing or that’s your take on what she’s doing?” Milberg asked.

“Well, what else is she doing? She’s not pledging allegiance to the flag,” Ortiz said.

That was a deliberate LIE circulated by conservatives for a reason - several reasons: to create fear, to gin up hatred towards Muslims, to undermine women in positions of authority, to create a false impression of victimization of conservatives under the cover of pretend patriotism, with a generous garnish of racism and anti-feminism. The apparently conservative tea bagger Ortiz is appearing to be just a cheap media whore in his ongoing demands for Najiy to be disciplined.

On a fundamental level, it is about how people intentionally peddle hate and ignorance and fear. On a fundamental level it is about the dumbing down of America.

On a fundamental level it is about factual versus fictional history, and it is about marginalizing and isolating people in dangerous and evil ways that are profoundly in conflict with our national motto - e pluribus unum, and our history as a tolerant and accepting melting pot of many people forming one nation that is stronger because of those combined cultural influences and ethic heritage.

It is informative as part of a larger understanding of our current politics in the context of factual history, factual current events, and understanding the defining characteristics of conservative fascism which include hyper patriotism, reconstituted factually inaccurate notions of previous 'golden ages' of history, and intolerant authoritarianism.

In this regard the pledge of allegiance in our history and how we have saluted - or not saluted - our national symbol, our flag, is particularly apt. At right is a photo of the Bellamy salute, a salute invented by the author of the pledge of allegiance. This Hitler and Mussolini style salute was changed, precisely BECAUSE it was too fascist.

The Bellamy salute is the salute described by Francis Bellamy, Christian socialist minister and author, to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the "flag salute". Later, during the 1920s and 1930s, Italian fascists and Nazis adopted a salute which had the same form, and which was derived from the Roman salute. This resulted in controversy over the use of the Bellamy salute in the United States. It was officially replaced by the hand-over-heart salute when Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22, 1942.
The inventor of the gesture was James B. Upham, junior partner and editor of The Youth's Companion.[1] Bellamy recalled Upham, upon reading the pledge, came into the posture of the salute, snapped his heels together, and said "Now up there is the flag; I come to salute; as I say 'I pledge allegiance to my flag,' I stretch out my right hand and keep it raised while I say the stirring words that follow."

The Bellamy salute was first demonstrated on October 12, 1892 according to Bellamy's published instructions for the "National School Celebration of Columbus Day":

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute -- right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.

— From The Youth’s Companion, 65 (1892): 446–447.

But what is especially significant about the fuss over saluting the flag and the pledge of allegiance, and all things surrounding the flag and assertions of patriotism (or disloyalty to the nation). There is in fact a long history of flag propaganda and attempts to smear individuals using the flag and the pledge of allegiance (continuing from the wikipedia entry linked above), which should of itself instruct us that the flag has a long history of being hijacked for propaganda purposes. Those who do not learn these lessons from history are doomed to repeat them, or worse, to be victimized by them:

The similarity to the Bellamy salute led to confusion, especially during World War II. From 1939 until the attack on Pearl Harbor, detractors of Americans who argued against intervention in World War II produced propaganda using the salute to lessen those Americans' reputations. Among the anti-interventionist Americans was aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh. Supporters of Lindbergh's views would claim that Lindbergh did not support Adolf Hitler, and that pictures of him appearing to do the Nazi salute were actually pictures of him using the Bellamy salute. In his Pulitzer prize winning biography Lindbergh, author A. Scott Berg explains that interventionist propagandists would photograph Lindbergh and other isolationists using this salute from an angle that left out the American flag, so it would be indistinguishable from the Hitler salute to observers.
In order to prevent further confusion or controversy, the United States Congress instituted the hand-over-the-heart gesture as the salute to be rendered by civilians during the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States, instead of the Bellamy salute.[2] This was done when Congress amended the Flag Code on December 22, 1942.

There was initially some resistance to dropping the Bellamy salute, for example from the Daughters of the American Revolution,[5] but this opposition died down quickly following Nazi Germany's declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941.

We should ALL be concerned about the attempts to coerce conformity of conduct at the expense of diversity and individual, personal exercise of conscience that are the hallmark of conservative intolerance, as a justification for bigotry and prejudice. The reality is that we have a wide range of people who do not state the pledge of allegiance (in part because of the inclusion mandated by conservative theocrats of the phrase 'under God' which was not original to the pledge) and who also do not swear to tell the truth in courts either. It is not uncommon for this to be a reflection of individual conscience or of religion; for example, the very influential Quaker community which was so influential to our nation's founding, including figures like Benjamin Franklin, did not swear such an oath in court. Instead for centuries there has been a legal alternative of 'affirmation' which is perfectly equivalent for the law and our courts.

Friday, May 1, 2015

He's not Colbert (at least not yet), but he NAILS this one. I can't think of a better example of shitty Republican 'math' where they just make up shit, and then try to pretend it is some kind of scholarship or rational thinking.

Turning up the heat on right wing lies

Opinions

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

― Isaac Asimov, "A Cult of Ignorance," Newsweek (Jan. 1980)

We stand with PP

past wisdom

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."Billy Graham - Parade (1 February 1981)

An astute observation from Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

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